Just to clarify, I’m not saying there is zero chance of any reaction against Koreans. I’m just saying that what I perceive to be a very small chance of somebody being harmed does not justify such finger-waggling statements from powerful individuals when the bodies are hardly cold.
By the way, I think it’s poor public relations for any Korean officials to pre-emptively warn about potential bigoted reprisals against Koreans. It’s highly unlikely to be effective against the slim chance of such events, and can be perceived as insulting - sort of rubbing a bit of salt in the wounds left by the shooting.
Much better (although not really necessary) would have been for the Korean Foreign Ministry to just have expressed sorrow and best wishes for the families involved.
Well, whatever really happened, it certainly wasn’t premeditated. They may have been negligent or had some spontaneous urge to run two girls down because they happened to be there, but it was largely an incident born of circumstance.
I am certainly not denying that South Korea has a prejudice against foreigners. But the relationship between Korea and the US military has always been a touchy subject. There was an incident a few years back where a Korean prostitute was raped and killed by American soldiers (she was found with a broken beer bottle up her vagina, I think) and the soldiers were tried by American courts and got off rather lightly (I’ll try to find the exact cite for this). When dealing with the US military, South Korea usually gets the short end of the stick.
A 1.5er is someone who grew up in the US but who was born in Korea. They’re not 1st generation (that would be their parents) but not 2nd generation, since they weren’t born in the US. Hence, 1.5.
I don’t know how many people were hurt or harrassed because of what happened, so I won’t say if it was significant or not. But considering it costs the government nothing to say “please don’t blame the wrong people,” I don’t see the harm. It’s a little passive-aggressive, and it could even be hypocritical in light of the incidents with the soldiers, but South Korea is looking out for its citizens in the U.S. Their taact or choice of words could be called into question, but the idea of what they’re doing doesn’t bother me.
For some reason, I seem to recall that it was an umbrella, but my Google skills are weak today.
What you’ll probably find out is that the Soldiers weren’t tried by the US military. They were, no doubt, tried by the South Korean civilian court system as that crime comes under their primary jurisdiction. The South Korean courts are very lenient when it comes to sentencing when compared to both the US civilian and US military courts. Part of that leniency is the practice in South Korea of the defendant paying “apology pay” or “remorse pay” to the victim. The judge will take into account the amount of the pay and also the victim’s resulting statement.
Want to know who got off light? The Korean man who just picked a random person on Itaewon in Seoul to kill and thus murdered a US military officer who was there, IIRC, on Temporary Duty. There was no confrontation at all, just a random murder. How often do you hear about that in Korea?
Odd thing, though, is the actual facts regarding "GI Crimes in Korea are actually published in Korea.
Actually, I think you’re right.
Monty, thank you for that link. I will freely admit to uncritically accepting what the Korean media feeds Koreans regarding US military crimes, and that I do need to be better informed on the subject. I am also aware that many American soldiers do not want to be in Korea, feel frustrated towards the Korean mindset that automatically sees them as bad guys, and that Koreans can be unreasonable in their antipathy towards them (the clubs in Korea that specfically ban GIs, for example, were a constant source of annoyance for me). But I will still maintain that in the larger picture, the Korean-US military relationship is not an equal one and never has been, and this goes back to the reason why the American military is in Korea to begin with (and also has a lot to do with the fact that until maybe the past decade or so, Korean-US interactions mostly took the form of guys meeting prostitutes, if the scholar Bruce Cumings is to be believed).
Also, the racism goes both ways. Many Americans (not only soldiers) go to Korea with ideas of meeting submissive and exotic women who will worship them because they are white males. Many of them live in Korea for years without even attempting to learn the language or better understand the culture (although I also knew those who did make an active effort to do so). Koreans can be racists in the extreme, but I wouldn’t say it’s a one-way street.
I think it’s probably good advice considering that anyone with brown skin and an accent became a target for shrieking rednecks after Sept. 11th.
The news media generally reports it correctly, but overdoes the reporting. They report it over and over and over again when the foreigner is the culprit. The media also fails to report more than as a casual mention the instances where the foreigner is the victim of a crime.
It’s illegal (read: a violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea) to deny someone entry to a place which admits the general public ifyou are denying them entry based on their national origin or race, but getting the government to enforce their own laws here is a ridiculous proposition.
The reason why the US military is here is because the government of South Korea has requested their presence. That’s mainly because the South Korean government and military officials both are fully aware that they cannot defend this country without the US military presence.
I think Cumings is over-representing how much of the interaction is with prostitutes. There are quite a few instances of non-sexual encounters between host nationals and the US military members.
Once they get here, they will no doubt find for themselves how realistic that is.
I know many foreigners here who refuse to learn anything at all of the country and also many who are thrilled to find out what they can. Sometimes it’s the same individual, just at a different stage of culture shock.
The Big Issue is not only the extremism of the racism, but the unqualified and unquestioning support of it by the Korean government. There are governmental entities that do try to make it better for foreigners here; however, they are understaffed and underfunded in addition to being overworked.
Besides the governmental support, there is also a ridiculous amount of day-to-day racism that foreigners are expected to accept without question. For example, I wanted to get Internet service to my apartment last month. The place I went to, a sub-contractor of KT (Korea Telecom), told me, “We can’t establish accounts for foreigners.” That’s completely illegal in addition to being false, which I knew because that’s the company I used back in 2005. I called KT’s head office and got the service established and lodged a complaint with them about the sub-contractor. They did talk to him about it. So, some things are getting better but I wouldn’t be too surprised if it took another 50 years for it to reach the state of civil rights in the US.
Interesting article in Foreign Policy that is relevant to this thread:
Well worth the read.
Rodgers01,
It would be nice if that report reflected majority reaction here. I think that particular author is playing fast and loose with the definition of “condolences,” though. Admittedly, I may have missed it, but so far all I’ve heard from the SK President is condolences and expressions of sympathy. No apology from him.
Of course, the only person who needs to apologize is dead already, but it’s very difficult as a foreigner here to not see the extremely different reaction to this event compared to reaction when a foreigner in Korean commits a crime.
At any rate, Cho himself may not have been to blame, depending on how insane, “legally insane,” he really was.
I just spent some time searching for an apology from President Roh. I found no apology, but, as mentioned above, there were expressions of condolence.